• This is the official handbook of the Take Back Your Time campaign which sponsors Take Back Your Time Day each year on October 24th. ( www.TimeDay.org)
• A stellar list of contributors includes such well-known bestselling authors as Vicki Robin, Bill Doherty, Anna Lappe, David Korten, Cecile Andrews and many others.
• Examines all aspects of the time-famine issue-from overwork among adults to overscheduling of our children; from environmental consequences to the effects of our time deficit on our communities, our families, and even our pets; from the history of overwork to viable alternatives.

Take Back Your Time is the official handbook for Take Back Your Time Day, a national event. Organizers have enlisted the support of colleges, universities, religious organizations, labor unions, businesses, activist groups, and non-profit organizations to create events that will take place across the country, calling attention to the ways overwork and lack of time affect us-at home, in our workplaces, and in our communities-and to inspire a movement to take back our time.

In Take Back Your Time, well-known experts in the fields of health, family therapy and policy, community and civic involvement, the environment, and other fields examine the problems of overwork, over-scheduling, time pressure and stress and propose personal, corporate and legislative solutions. This book shows how wide-ranging the impacts of time famine in our society are, and what ordinary citizens can do to turn things around and win a more balanced life for themselves and their children.

• Organizing Take Back Your Time Day In Your Community by Sean Sheehen
• Teach-Ins & Study Circles by Cecile Andrews
• How To Pitch (Not Place) A Story by Eric Brown

1. AN ISSUE FOR EVERYBODY -- Barbara Brandt, National Staffperson, The Shorter Work-Time Group, Boston
2. THE (EVEN MORE) OVERWORKED AMERICAN -- Juliet Schor, Professor of Sociology at Boston College and author of The Overworked American
3. THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING VACATION -- Joe Robinson, Director of the National Work To Live Campaign, Santa Monica, CA
4. FORCED OVERTIME IN THE LAND OF THE FREE -- Lonnie Golden, Professor of Economics, Penn State University

5. OVERSCHEDULED KIDS, UNDERCONNECTED FAMILIES -- Bill Doherty, Professor of Family Therapy, University of Minnesota, and Barbara Carlson, co-founder, Putting Family First, Minneapolis
6. RECAPTURING CHILDHOOD -- Betsy Taylor, Executive Director, The Center for a New American Dream, Takoma Park, Maryland
7. WHAT ABOUT FLUFFY AND FIDO? -- Camilla Fox, National Campaign Director, The Animal Protection Institute, Sacramento, CA

8. WASTED WORK, WASTED TIME -- Jonathan Rowe, Director of the Tomales Bay Institute, Pt. Reyes, CA
9. TIME TO BE A CITIZEN -- Paul Loeb, author, The Soul of a Citizen
10. TIME AND CRIME -- Charles Reasons, Professor of Law and Justice, Central Washington University

11. AN HOUR A DAY (COULD KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY) -- Suzanne Schweikert, MD, Physician, San Diego, CA
12. THE (BIGGER) PICTURE OF HEALTH -- Stephen Bezruchka, MD, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle

13. HASTE MAKES WASTE -- David Wann, co-author, Affluenza
14. THE SPEED TRAP -- Robert Bernstein, Sierra Club Transportation Working Group, Santa Barbara, CA
15. ON TIME, HAPPINESS AND ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTS -- Tim Kasser, Professor of Psychology, Knox College, Illinois, and Kirk Warren Brown, Professor of Psychology, University of Rochester, NY

16. WHEN WE HAD THE TIME -- Benjamin Hunnicutt, Professor of Leisure Studies, University of Iowa
17. CAN AMERICA LEARN FROM SHABBAT? -- Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center, Philadelphia

18. ENOUGH-THE TIME COST OF STUFF -- Vicki Robin, co-author, Your Money or Your Life, chair of The Simplicity Forum
19. THE SIMPLE SOLUTION -- Cecile Andrews, author of Circle of Simplicity and lecturer at Stanford University

20. A JOB TO SHARE -- Carol Ostrom, staff writer, The Seattle Times
21. A NEW BOTTOM LINE -- Irene Myers, Larry Gaffin, Barbara Schramm, career counselors
22. WORKING RETIRED -- Beverly Goldberg, Director of Publications, The Century Foundation and author of Age Works
23. A CASE FOR SABBATICALS -- Bob Sessions, Professor of Sociology at Kirkwood College, Iowa, and Lori Ericson, freelance writer
24. AMERICA NEEDS A BREAK -- Karen Nussbaum, director of the Women's Division, and Chris Owens, Director of Public Policy, The AFL-CIO
25. IT WOULD BE GOOD FOR BUSINESS TOO -- Sharon Lobel, Professor of Business and Management, Seattle University

26. RECIPES FOR CHANGE -- Anna Lappe, food activist and co-author, Hope's Edge, New York City
27. TIME BY DESIGN -- Linda Breen Pierce, author of Choosing Simplicity, Carmel, CA

28. EUROPE'S WORK-TIME ALTERNATIVES -- Anders Hayden, author of Sharing The Work, Sparing The Planet
29. A POLICY AGENDA FOR TAKING BACK TIME -- Jerome Segal, Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland
30. WHAT'S AN ECONOMY FOR? -- David Korten, former professor at Stanford and Harvard Business Schools and author of When Corporations Rule The World

• ORGANIZING TAKE BACK YOUR TIME DAY IN YOUR COMMUNITY -- Sean Sheehan, Outreach Director of the Center for a New American Dream
• HOW TO DO A TEACH-IN OR A SPEAK-OUT -- Cecile Andrews and John de Graaf
• HOW TO REACH YOUR LOCAL MEDIA --- Eric Brown, Director of Communications of the Center for a New American Dream

If you only have time to read one book this year, then this is absolutely the book to read!

• Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the bestselling Nickel and Dimed

The 40 hour week, retirement secure, paid leave--these issues have been the heart and soul of the union movement for 150 years. Sadly, these issues are nearly as relevant again as they were at the dawn of the union movement. Take Back Your Time is a call to action for all of us who believe that the aim of a society is to benefit its people, not to maximize profits.

• John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO

Americans' increasing hours at work and veneration of the market are eroding our capacity for interdependence, care, and citizenship. Take Back Your Time offers both an essential new perspective on this disastrous social trend, and concrete ways we can begin to reclaim our lives--and our society.

• Ilene Philipson, sociologist and author of Married To The Job

Take Back Your Time launches the new American revolution against the tyranny of soulless organizations and mindless consumption, liberating ourselves to meaningful and free lives. Take back your time and everything is possible.

• -John Stauber, Executive Director of PR Watch, author of Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! and Trust Us, We're Experts

This book is not about time, really; it's about power. It's about realizing our own power to be in control, not slaves to inexorable economic forces. This book is therefore about choice, about how we each have choice, moment to moment, to live in ways that satisfy body and soul. Read this book and take a long, deep sigh of relief.

• Frances Moore Lappe, author of Hope's Edge, Diet For A Small Planet and many other books

Overwork is an environmental issue. Take Back Your Time shows us how mindfully taking back time for a simpler life can also lead to healthier communities that take better care of the natural world that sustains us all. It suggests that we ought to being trading productivity increases for time instead of stuff. If we don't, we won't only run out of time, we'll run out of resources and a habitable planet.

• John Knox, Executive Director, Earth Island Institute

The authors of Take Back Your Time have made a compelling case for the direct relationship between overwork and a host of critical social problems, from physical and emotional stress to overconsumption of resources, environmental degradation and declining levels of civic participation. A tour de force!

• Al Gedicks, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

This book contains loads of good ammunition for advocates to use in the fight to establish more family-friendly workplace rules. Take Back Your Time adds credence to the argument that employees are more productive and actually add to the company's bottom line when there's a better balance between the demands of work and family. It's time to give American families leave and benefits that are at least as good as those that families in all other industrialized countries enjoy.

• Karen Keiser, Washington State Senator and Communications Director, Washington State Labor Council

This book is not only a treasure but an eye opener! Not only was I impressed with Take Back Your Time, but moved to action in my own organization. Working in a family research based environment, this book provided me with scientific insight that helped me reconfigure my organization's personnel leave policy and truly contributed to making NCFR a more family friendly workplace.

• Michael L. Benjamin, M.P.H., Executive Director, National Council on Family Relations